And bus tickets.
“Made the big decision?” Mona said.
Enid looked up with wide eyes, “I – uh –I’m sort of on a budget.”
Mona leaned in confidentially, “What’s the ceiling?”
“Five dollars and thirty-five cents.”
“You like heuvos rancheros?”
Enid looked sheepish. She didn’t want to admit she didn’t have enough money for whatever the heck a heuvos rancheros was.
Mona leaned in confidentially, “I don’t want to hurt his feelings but Cook whipped up a batch for me special, but all morning I been poppin’ wheelies on a Southern breeze.”
Enid’s forehead wrinkled, unsure.
“You’d be doing me a favor if you ate ‘em for me.”
Enid started to protest but Mona waved away her words and disappeared into the kitchen.
Enid’s embarrassment was overruled by her stomach, which was starting to sound like a NASCAR lineup.
Maybe if I pretend I’m waiting for a bus, I can sleep at the bus station.
CHAPTER EIGHT
If you can’t run with the dogs, don’t get off the porch.
–Southern Saying
After scrubbing his arm with soap and water and hoping that he wouldn’t contract rabies or some other flesh-eating disease from the crazy girl’s bite, Jack had returned to the office where Rachel was still reviewing the contract with Jeni. He had briefly contemplated filing a report with the police, but didn’t feel up to the hassle.
Once in the client office, he stood in front of the door that separated it from his private office. He hesitated, his scowl deepening. During the interview with Jeni, he had heard a noise coming from within his office and knew that there was trouble on the other side of the door, waiting for him.
He opened the door and stepped in. Past the beat-up desk sat a well-worn leather couch. The couch was usually empty and inviting. Today, Petunia O’Donnell sat on the couch like a curled-up kitten ready to play…
Or claw.
At thirty-three, Petunia exuded an unmistakable, albeit slightly crude, sex appeal. Where Jeni was all tan long legs that reminded one of an impossibly smooth silk road that beckoned to be followed, Petunia was a dangerous combination of compact curves that, as recently as two weeks ago, had left Jack intoxicated with pleasure.
Jack couldn’t help but run his eyes over those oft-explored curves. In retaliation, her eyes devoured his body with self-assured ownership.
Petunia’s green eyes were accented with a masterful application of makeup, her shoulder-length red hair was lustrous and shining, and her lips were painted a rich red that harkened back to a 1950s Hollywood siren. Her dress was black with a red cherry design that was cinched at the waist, and her black heels would, on any other woman, have been thought demure. Petunia, however, had the conjuring power to transform even the most demure dress into something vaguely naughty.
Jack didn’t try to hide his annoyance as he stripped off his jacket and threw it on a chair.
“I don’t like her,” Petunia purred.
“You don’t like anybody,” Jack retorted. He opened the desk drawer and grabbed his wallet. He frowned, hand scrabbling around the drawer, looking for his keys.
Petunia held up his keys. “I like you.”
“Keep it in your pants, Petunia,” Jack said curtly, shutting the drawer with a snap.
Undeterred, Petunia uncurled herself, slid off the couch and walked toward him. Even in stilettos, she walked softly, which gave her a stealthy approach that Jack found disconcerting.
“I miss you,” she whispered, leaning into him.
“It’s over,” Jack said brusquely, trying to ignore the sensation of her dimpled white hand on his chest.
“You promised you’d make me happy!”
Jack scowled, trying to ignore the memory of the day he did promise to make her happy.
Shit.
Petunia’s eyes glowered, “You did promise.”
It didn’t count – she knew that, didn’t she?
Jack compressed his lips, shifted uncomfortably.
“Take me to lunch,” Petunia demanded.
“Can’t afford your kind of lunch.”
“It’s on me,” Petunia stood on tiptoes and whispered into his ear. “Or under me, or behind me.”
Shivers ran down Jack’s spine, the purr of her voice echoed softly in his head.
Jack’s mind flashed back to the first time he had seen Petunia. She had worn a form-fitting cobalt blue dress and looked more brilliant than the perfect Scottsdale sky that hung like a cathedral ceiling above the crowds at the Phoenix Open. Jack had been working a routine surveillance on a husband whose wife suspected him of cheating. The husband was cheating – with Petunia.
Jack fixed the cheating husband in the crosshairs of the lens of his camera and caught his breath when he saw Petunia licking sugar off the rim of a specialty drink. He had been instantly drawn to her X-rated eyes that gazed up at the sucker that he was there to bust.
The wife got the photos. Not to mention the kids, the McMansion, the pool with the waterfall cascading over giant plastic rocks and a truckload of money.
Jack got Petunia.
Things were good – damned good – for over half a year.
Until the promise racket noise hit high decibels.
Uneasy at the feelings that Petunia was a master of invoking within him, Jack frowned and moved away from her.
Petunia petulantly stamped her foot, “I’m here to hire you!”
Jack shot her a “yeah right” look.
Petunia tossed her hair and feigned a nonchalance that Jack knew she did not feel. “I think my husband’s cheating.”
“Your husband is not the cheating type,” Jack answered, grateful to be on firmer ground.
“I’ll pay you,” Petunia stubbornly pushed on. “For your services.”
“Thanks but no thanks.” Jack headed for the door. “You remember how to let yourself out.”
Springing forward, Petunia grabbed him, her arms encircling his neck. Her lips pressed into his and Jack felt a punch of pleasure as their uneven breath tangled. Jack found himself trying to break free of the kiss with all the willpower of a bee in hot butter.
Soiled memories fought their way up and Jack pushed Petunia back, scowling, “It’s no good!”
Petunia looked up at him, lips open, eyes inviting. Waiting.
Jack scowled, turned on his heels and headed out. He called over his shoulder. “Go home! Try to be a good apple.”
Petunia stepped forward, eyes snapping with anger and voice thick with taunting, “Since when do you like good apples?”
CHAPTER NINE
In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Bud was five minutes from his destination in North Scottsdale when he got the call. The one call he couldn’t ignore. With a sigh, he turned the truck and headed to Phoenix where he arranged to meet Larry at a coffee shop on Thunderbird and Seventh.
Seven years ago, Bud started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to get closer to a suspect. It wasn’t his case and he would never have gotten involved except…
Bunnie cried for a week over what that degenerate did.
The degenerate in question, Steve Caldwell, was a mild- mannered CPA in his mid-thirties whose wife and two kids disappeared. The wife, Linda, was a soft-spoken woman who bought Avon products from Bunnie. When Linda hadn’t returned her phone calls, Bunnie went to their house.
Bunnie indignantly related the incident back to Bud that night. “That bean-counting butt-wipe stood in the door big as the dick he is and tried to tell me Linda left him and moved back to Maryland to live with her parents. He must think I’m dumber than a bag of hammerheads if he thinks I buy that bunk of bullshit! First off, she’d never move back to Maryland because the tire dump five miles down the road is still on fire and they can’t put it out and Mikey has asthma so there’s
no way that is happening. Second, she would never not pick up her Avon order – it had the Skin-So-Soft-Bug-Guard and she was desperate to get it because if there’s a flea in a five-mile radius, it’s on Mikey. She loves those kids and there is no way she’d take them back to Maryland – with burning tires and no bug guard! Duh. Besides, he looks like a serial killer. His eyes are too close together and he’s got that crazy left nostril tic. Why don’t you go down there and scare him or something? Let him know we’re onto him! What’s the use of having a badge if you can’t push people around every once in a while?”
Bud had tracked down Linda’s parents and was surprised to find out they had recently filed a missing person’s report. Linda’s mother was on the verge of hysteria when Bud explained that Steve said that Linda left him and that she was driving back to Maryland to be with them. Steve claimed he hadn’t called Linda or her parents because he wanted to give Linda her “space.”
Within the week, the local news was saturated with stories about the missing woman and children. Steve was the prime suspect in their disappearance but, after a lengthy investigation, nothing was ever proven and no bodies were ever found.
Bunnie was convinced that Linda was dead and Steve was a cold-blooded killer. Months went by and the story faded.
Bunnie’s suffering did not.
It cut Bud to the quick to see Bunnie suffer. He made it a point to get friendly with the detective working the case. When he found out that Steve went to Alcoholics Anonymous, Bud decided to attend several meetings.
Steve put on a show: the heartbroken, wrongly accused husband who pined for his family. He hinted that all had not been well. His wife had a temper and she periodically threatened to leave him, but he had refused to believe it - until it was too late.
Bud tried to become a sponsor to Steve and inadvertently become a sponsor to Larry, a sad-sack guy who was crazy in love with his pretty wife who was a serial cheater and only stayed married to Larry because of his exceptional group health insurance that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing. Bud cursed his luck and was determined to get out of the sponsorship at the first opportunity, but the opportunity never arose.
At first, Bud treated going to the meetings like a chore, but to his surprise, he began looking forward to them. He liked listening to people bare their souls. He was used to hearing people bare their souls during the course of a murder investigation. This was different. This was a baring of souls that ended with more hope for the future. Nobody in the group ever confessed murder. They confessed horrible things, but not murder, which proved strangely uplifting to Bud.
He also liked the bad coffee and donuts.
Despite the fact that Bunnie knew nothing about his AA life, Bud’s being a sponsor and attending AA meetings became the hobby that Bunnie kept insisting he get. Since he worked irregular hours, he never lied – except by omission. He justified not telling Bunnie about the meetings because he didn’t want to get her hopes up about the case but, when Steve stopped showing up, Bud continued to go and simply kept his mouth shut about it.
Bud began to like Larry – if for no better reason than he seemed so accepting of the bad hand life kept shoving in his face. Bud didn’t have the heart to back out of the sponsor relationship and spent seven years being an on-and-off sponsor to various members, but mostly Larry.
When Larry called him at home, Bunnie assumed that he was a friend from work with a drinking problem. She had complained on more than one occasion that Larry needed to join AA and stop acting like Bud was his sponsor.
Bud met Larry at a Starbucks on Seventh Street and Missouri where they sat on the patio under the misters.
“I know she’s cheating on me,” Larry said in a low desperate voice. “I should leave but I can’t. I want a drink so bad!”
Bud listened as Larry talked about his wife. He knew better than to try to be a therapist.
After twenty minutes, Larry had fallen into a lull. Bud’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller’s name and said, “I have to take this.”
Larry gestured that he was going to get them both refills.
When Larry returned, Bud’s face was flushed red and he was rubbing his jaw that was throbbing like it was fractured.
“Everything okay?” Larry said.
Bud looked at him blankly, not registering the question.
“What’s wrong?” Larry said, getting scared. “Did somebody die?”
“Not yet,” Bud muttered through clenched teeth.
CHAPTER TEN
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
–George Eliot
Enid put the last of her cash, five dollars and thirty-five cents, under her scraped-clean plate. She couldn’t believe that she had gone sixteen years without knowing that something as magical heuvos rancheros existed!
She knew it was a boneheaded move to leave the last of her money as a tip for Mona but something inside her urged her to it. She felt the need to put herself out and broke on the Phoenix concrete to see what kind of luck she could conjure up.
If I’m desperate enough – maybe it’ll give me the courage to go back to the Jack Fox Detective Agency.
She shouldered her backpack and headed out the front door. The Phoenix sunshine struck her as startlingly different from the Florida weather she’d grown up in. The Phoenix sun seemed more honest than Florida’s baggage of haze and humidity.
Enid’s eyes caught Jeni coming out of the building and Enid furtively followed her. Jeni walked a city block before she reached a Honda Civic with enough dents to qualify it for a Purple Heart.
Jeni slid in and was in the process of grinding the gears to a painful start when Enid knocked on her window.
Jeni jumped like she’d been shot.
Enid made an apologetic face as Jeni rolled down the window.
“Hey,” Enid said, feeling like an idiot.
Jeni surprised her by lighting up with a smile. “I owe you a big thanks! You got me a discount.”
“How much?” Enid asked, smiling in response.
“Hey, what’s up with you busting in like that? Why’d you bite him? What was that about?” Jeni eyed Enid with sudden suspicion.
“I think he’s my dad,” Enid blurted out.
Jeni’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Wildfire! Does he know?”
“Um…”
“Oh my god!” Jeni interrupted, “I’m looking for my mom and you – you’re looking for your dad! What are the odds?”
“I don’t think he likes me.”
“I wouldn’t either if you took a chunk of meat out of my arm.”
“I don’t think he likes kids.” Enid frowned.
“You’re not a kid. How old are you? Sixteen? I was payin’ light bills at sixteen.”
“Would you mind – uh – giving me a lift to the bus stop?”
“You’re not going to bite me, are you?”
Enid smiled sheepishly, shook her head.
“Plant the tush in the cush.” Jeni waved at the passenger seat.
Enid gratefully circled the car and got in the passenger’s side. Jeni hauled baby stuff off the passenger seat and threw it into the back. “Sorry for the mess.”
“How many kids do you have?”
“One sweetheart of a little girl. I named her Faith after that chick on that soap opera who fell in love with the monk who had amnesia.” Jeni sighed before she started grinding the gears again.
Enid flinched at the sound. “You want me to drive?”
“You have a license?” Jeni asked.
“Um…”
“Chinese fire drill!” Jeni hopped out, ran around the car and pushed a surprised Enid toward the driver’s seat, forcing Enid to climb over the shift lever. A shrill catcall came from a passing truck. Jeni ignored it.
“Where to?” Enid asked, excited to be behind the wheel.
“Bus station, right?” Jeni shot Enid a look, “Hey, why are you going to the bus station? Aren’t you
going to tell him he’s your dad?”
Enid checked the mirrors as she said, “I told you, I don’t think he likes me.”
“Big whup! If he’s your dad, he’s your dad.”
Enid eased into traffic, “Do you like your – uh, fake mother?”
Jeni made a face, shrugged.
Enid hesitated, glanced at Jeni, “Um – would you know – do they…?”
“Spit it out.”
“Do you think I’d get in trouble – if I slept at the bus stop tonight?” Enid blurted out, face red.
“Are you shittin’ me?”
“Noo,” Enid said, uncertain.
“I don’t have any money if that’s what you want. I’m barely keepin’ my own ass above water.” Jeni frowned.
“I don’t want anything! I just wanted to make sure – I mean – they’ll let me – right?” Enid gazed at her with worried eyes.
Jeni examined her. After a long moment, she cut loose a sigh. “You can stay with me. Turn right up here.”
“But…”
“You babysit?” Jeni asked.
“Are you kidding? I was born babysitting!” Enid exclaimed, happily.
“What ages?”
“Thirty-four,” Enid said, thinking about her mother.
Jeni raised her eyebrows in surprise.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
To think of shadows is a serious thing.
–Victor Hugo
Jack didn’t know who he was more disgusted with – Petunia or himself. He strode into the reception room where Rachel met his eyes.
“Playing deaf, huh?” Jack said.
“Part of my job description,” Rachel said cheerfully, holding out a sheaf of paper. “I already did some preliminary research on your new client, Jeni Hargrove.”
“What about the part of your job description that includes keeping my private office private?” Jack jerked his thumb toward his office.
Gunning For Angels (Fallen Angels Book 1) Page 4
